“Journeyman”: Ep. 4. Drip…Drip…Drip

Another week, another confusing episode, another small batch of clues about what in the wide, wide world of sports is going on out there the City by the Bay, where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars and all that.

Let’s get through the hard part first: The story. We seem to recall that it had something to do with Dan preventing a woman from being murdered by her fiance or husbands (I forget which), then preventing here from murdering her fiance/husband, then — my god – when she does shoot her fiance/husband, planting evidence to make it look like she acted in self defense and so she and her we-thought-he-was-a-stalker-but-maybe-not Ex-Boyfriend The Cop could live happily ever after.

Happily ever after, that is, assuming she can live with the fact that she killed a man ju-u-ust because he apparently stole money from the Web 1.0 business they were building and kept asking her for some disc she wouldn’t give him.

Believe us, it all made even less sense the first time around.

But we’ve decided not to spend too much psychic energy trying to figure out the details. We’re holding tight to the explanation that, according to Livia, when he’s traveling back in time it’s “like the wild wild west” and anything goes. Even, apparently, planting evidence.

Anyway, here’s some of what we learned this week:

* Dan starts researching the possibilities of time travel, leading him to an expert in tachyons named Elliott Langley.

* Langley knew Dan’s father.

* Langley can travel through time. Or at least his voice can. See, when Dan is back to 1997, he gets a phone call on the brick he’s taken to carrying all the time from Langley.

The conversation ends abruptly, leading us raising the possibility that Langley is somehow involved in whatever it is that is sending Dan back in time. Or, that he has really really good cell phone service.

What we liked this week:

* A nice bit of acting by Gretchen Egolf as No-Longer-So-Understanding-Wife Katie, alone in the bedroom after Dan has once again disappeared into the past. A powerful mix of concern, realization and loneliness all in one look.

* Annoying Brother Jack’s cute near-meet with the hot doctor.

* Dan’s nod to the newspaper industry’s downsizing. Hey, how come he doesn’t have to blog?

* Nice that Dan is affected by the fight in the past even after he returns to the present. He’s shaken, clammy and bleeding, not to mention carrying a gun he most certainly doesn’t have registration papers for.